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THE STATUE. 



EXERCISES 



AT THE 



DEDICATION OF THE 



STATUE 



OF 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 



JULY <;, 191? 




CITY OF BOSTON 

PRINTING DEPARTMENT 

I 9 I 6 



^73 



CITY OF BOSTON. 



In City Council, July 16, 1915. 
Ordered, That the City Clerk be authorized to prepare and 
have printed an edition of 500 copies of a volume containing 
an account of the exercises at the dedication of the Wendell 
Phillips Memorial; said volume to be distributed under the 
direction of the Committee on Printing, and the expense to be 
charged to the appropriation for City Documents. 

Passed. Approved by the Acting Mayor July 19, 1915. 

Attest: 

W. J. DOYLE, 

Assistant City Clerk. 



^' 7 /cfL 



K 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Invocation by Rev. Montrose W. Thornton, D. D., 8 

Address by Acting Mayor George W. Coleman, 11 

Address by William Dexter Brigham . 15 

Address by Frank B. Sanborn 31 

Address by William Monroe Trotter ... 36 

Address by Michael J. Jordan 43 

Original Poem by William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., 52 

History of Wendell Phillips Statue .... 54 



PROGRAM 



Hon. George W. Coleman, Acting Mayor, will preside. 

INVOCATION. Montrose William Thornton, D. D. 

ADDRESSES ON MR. PHILLIPS' LIFE WILL BE GIVEN 
BY THE FOLLOWING SPEAKERS, COVERING 
THE FOUR PERIODS OF HIS LIFE, UNDER THE 
TITLES OF 

"Morning. — Youth and Vision." 
William Dexter Brig ham. 

"Noon.— The Abohtion Period." 
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn. 

"Afternoon. — Citizenship for the Colored American." 
William Monroe Trotter. 

" Evening. — What Mr. Phillips did for Ireland; also, his other 

Philanthropies." 

Michael J. Jordan, Esq. 

Original Poem. — "Wendell Phillips." 
William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. 

Unveiling Statue by a lad. 
John C. Phillips, Jr. 



Music by a chorus of colored singers from the Boston churches, 
under the direction of Dr. Walter 0. Taylor and 
J. Sherman Jones. 



OPENING EXERCISES 



The exercises of imveiling and dedicating the 
Wendell Phillips statue by the City of Boston were 
opened by Mr. William D. Brigham, as secretary 
of the Wendell Phillips Memorial Association, who 
introduced the Acting Mayor, George W. Cole- 
man, president of the City Council. Mr. Coleman 
called upon Rev. Montrose William Thornton, 
pastor of the Charles Street African Methodist 
Episcopal Church, for the invocation. 



8 WENDELL PHILLIPS 



DEDICATORY PRAYER 

By the Rev. Montrose William Thornton, Ph. D. 



Almighty and everlasting God, who art the 
Sovereign of the universe, and rulest the children 
of men as seemeth good in thy sight, look down, 
we beseech thee in mercy, upon this historic gather- 
ing. We adore thee, God, as the Lord of Hosts. 
We come unto thee at this hour to acknowledge 
our gratitude for the blessings of this day, the 
anniversary of this nation's birth and the illus- 
trious lives of the great, the patriots whose memory 
we bless in these exercises. We thank thee and 
adore thy name for the gift of an Andrew, a Garri- 
son, a Sumner and the immortal Wendell Phillips, 
the latter whose life we now extoll and whose deeds 
we revere. In thy name and by the services that 
bring us here, as this shaft of bronze and marble 
is unveiled and dedicated to the great cause for 
which he gave his precious life, we beseech thy 
favor and pray as the generations pass this way 
their gaze upon this monument will perpetuate in 
their souls the worth and services of one of thy 
greatest sons. 

For him we the living do pray; suffer not the 
wicked to accomplish their ungodly purposes; defeat 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 9 

the designs and machinations of those who would 
invade the equal rights or abridge the just privi- 
leges of the people. 

May law and order, justice and equity and the 
sound principles of thy Holy Word prevail in our 
land and in all the nations of the earth. 

Lord, put to naught the counsels of those who 
delight in war and bloodshed, and who will adopt 
no method to adjust disputes but that of leading 
thousands into the field of battle, and ushering 
multitudes unprepared into the presence of an 
offended and awful God. 

Lord, hear our prayers for peace, for the rulers 
of this land and Commonwealth; teach them and 
those they serve to cultivate harmony and love; 
make an end of tumult; let all false ideas of dig- 
nity and glory be buried in the dust, and may all in 
authority see that it is their greatest glory to legis- 
late and govern in the fear of the Lord and for the 
peace and quiet of the nation. 

Graciously bless these noble spirits, the good men 
and women inspired in the endeavor of this hour, 
who have led forth this splendid undertaking to 
perpetuate the loving memory of their worthy 
brother, and may the Wendell Phillips Memorial 
Association live and flourish in humanitarian serv- 
ice until men everywhere shall be touched with 
thy spirit of brotherhood and all shall be one with 
thee. 

Our trust is in thee; thou livest and reignest on 



10 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

high. Oh, come down and Uve and reign also 
among the people, and overrule their agitations to 
thine own glory and the furtherance of thy pur- 
poses of wisdom and mercy. From this day forth 
cause the wrath of man to praise thee, and the 
remainder of wrath do thou restrain. May peace 
and harmony take the place of discontent and com- 
motion, and may love and good will animate the 
hearts of the children of men everywhere. 

O thou prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, 
hear our supplications, and grant us an answering 
in peace through Jesus Christ, to whom, as the 
Lamb that was slain to redeem us to God by his 
blood, be blessing, and honor, and glory, and power 
forever and ever. Amen. 




THE SPEAKERS AT THE DEDICATION. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 11 



ADDRESS 

BY ACTING Mayor George w. Coleman 



It may be interesting for you to hear a little of 
the history of the Wendell Phillips Memorial Asso- 
ciation and concerning the statue to be dedicated 
to-day. 

Wendell Phillips died February 2, 1884. Soon 
after that the Wendell Phillips Association was 
formed, with the thought of raising money to build 
a hall for working people as a memorial to Wendell 
PhiUips. In 1894 the name was changed to the 
Wendell Phillips Memorial Association by act of 
the Legislature, and the funds, which had been 
rather slow in gathering, were used to purchase two 
scholarships, one in Harvard University and one 
in Tufts College, to be given to some student who 
showed promise of oratorical powers. Soon after 
this was done the association slumbered for about 
twenty-five years. Then it was revived in 1911, 
and Dr. A. N. Abbott of South Boston, who was 
treasurer of the original association, has continued 
treasurer up to the present time. 

On the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of 
Wendell Phillips, November 29, 1911, a celebration 
of this event was held in Faneuil Hall under the 
auspices of the National Equal Rights League, an 



12 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

organization chiefly of colored citizens, and the 
New England Suffrage League. The suggestion 
was then made that the City of Boston erect a 
statue in honor of Wendell Phillips and the matter 
was brought to the attention of the City Council 
and of Hon. John F. Fitzgerald, who was then Mayor 
of Boston, by Mr. Earnest E. Smith, one of the City 
Council. A meeting was called by the committee 
appointed at the centenary celebration of fifty 
representative citizens, who requested the Mayor 
to provide for this statue. As a result of these 
conferences Mayor Fitzgerald sent a message to 
the City Council, requesting them to appropriate 
$20,000 for the erection of a statue, and the Council 
heartily agreed to this. So that we are indebted to 
Mayor Fitzgerald for originating the order, as under 
the new charter all orders must originate with the 
Mayor, and we are indebted to the City Council 
for voting the money. 

It was first suggested that the money be taken from 
the Parkman Fund left for the beautifying of public 
parks, but it was afterwards voted that the money 
be taken from the general tax levy, so that the 
humblest citizen of Boston who is a taxpayer con- 
tributed his share to the erection of this monument. 

Repeated conferences were held by the committee 
of the Wendell Phillips Memorial Association with 
the Art Commission. Differences of opinion devel- 
oped as to where the statue should be located, 
whether on Beacon street opposite Walnut, looking 
down upon the house where Mr. Phillips was born. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 13 

or on the corner of Charles and Beacon streets; 
but it was finally decided by concurrent action of 
the Art Commission and the Park Commission that 
the statue should be located where it is to-day, 
with the beautiful Public Garden for a background 
and facing the wide boulevard of Boylston street, 
and facing the southwest, as the sculptor desired. 

The citizens of Boston are especially fortunate 
that the Art Commission chose for the sculptor 
Daniel Chester French, whose work in the "Minute 
Man" at Concord, the statue of John Harvard in 
Cambridge and "Death Arresting the Sculptor" in 
Forest Hills Cemetery is so well known. He is one 
of the most eminent living American sculptors and 
has been particularly successful in making an impres- 
sive statue and an accurate representation of Mr. 
Phillips' expression and figure. The cost of the 
statue was $20,000 and honors the memory and per- 
petuates the influence of one of Boston's most 
illustrious sons, and one who with two or three 
others changed the world's history and led to the 
final abolition of slavery and struck the shackles 
from 4,000,000 slaves. 

As a young man I went once to hear the great 
Phillips speak, determined to discover, if I could, 
the secret of his oratorical power. The subject he 
was announced to speak upon did not particularly 
interest me at the time, and I thought I could give 
my whole attention to an analysis of his speaking 
gifts. Afterwards at home, when I was asked what 
I had discovered, I had to admit that in the flow 



14 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

of his smooth rhetoric I had forgotten all about my 
purpose to study him and had become absorbed in 
what he was talking about. If I remember cor- 
rectly that was his last public address and was given 
in the hall of the Boston Young Men's Christian 
Union. 

Another outstanding memory I have of Phillips 
is the loving partnership that existed between him 
and his invalid wife. She cheered and encouraged 
him in his darkest hours when there were but scant 
sources of comfort to be found anywhere else. 

Wendell Phillips had the heart and the vision and 
the courage to step outside the limitations of his 
own aristocratic, cultured, privileged class and give 
himself, all that he had and was and all that he 
hoped to be, to the men and women of another class, 
unfavored, unprivileged and unchampioned, in 
order that he might improve their station in life. 
What we need to-day more than anything else in 
this great city, in the old Bay State, throughout 
our country and the world around, is men like Phillips 
who are sufficiently big-hearted, broad-minded and 
courageous to sense the difficulties and sufferings of 
some class or race not their own and devote them- 
selves to an improvement of their condition. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 15 



ADDRESS 

BY Mr. William D. Brigham 



Fellow Citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The highest peaks of the Alps catch the first 
rays of the morning light, while the valleys below 
are still submerged in darkness. So it seems to 
me a few persons in each century seem to catch 
the morning light of God's plans and to have what 
we call vision. Everyone has some ideal to which 
he tries to measure up. Wendell Phillips was 
what we might call a practical idealist. 

We are all interested in the stories of Greek 
and Roman mythology, for these nations personified 
everything, — war, peace, with their heroes and 
heroines, the winds, the sea, the skies, the stars, 
fruits and flowers, — and yet, interesting as all 
these stories are, we always have the feeling, I 
think, that they were unreal. 

Wendell Phillips was a man among men, a man 
of like passions with ourselves, who attended our 
schools, went to our colleges and walked our streets, 
and many of us still living remember his beautiful 
and benignant face as he dwelt among us, in the 
peaceful evening of life after the storm and stress 
of his youth and earlier years. 



16 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

I think that sometimes the common blessings 
of life — air, smishine, home, friendship, liberty — 
are enjoyed by us with almost mithankful hearts, 
and I am sure it is weU and profitable to-day to' 
pause for a few moments to express our gratitude 
to one who more than anyone else, with perhaps a 
single exception, brought about the abolition of 
slavery in this country. We do weU to honor his 
memory — to remember that when friends forsook 
him, when his own family turned from him and when 
the church of the living God, which should have led 
in the conflict, was either indifferent or hostile, 
he never wavered in his purpose that slavery 
should be abolished. 

I think it is impressive to remember how few 
persons there really were who furnished the inspira- 
tion, did the work, risked their lives, to free the 
slaves— Phillips, Garrison, Sumner, Andrew, Beecher, 
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Whittier, Theodore Parker 
and Abraham Lincoln and Julia Ward Howe. 

Some of our greatest men were born in lowly 
circumstances and in extreme poverty. President 
McKinley used to relate how, when he was a boy, 
on a winter morning he would go out into the pasture 
with his mother and stand on the place where the 
cow had been lying all night, to warm his bare feet, 
while his mother milked the cow. 

But WendeU Phillips was born of an historic family, 
in affluence. He had the charm of great personal 
beauty, an education at the Boston Latin School 
and at Harvard University and the Harvard Law 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 17 

School, a voice so wonderful that people called him 
"the silver-tongued orator," and, above all, a heart 
that went out to every lowly human being. 

On the 12th of April, 1630, the progenitor of the 
Phillips family in America, Rev. George Phillips, 
set sail as fellow passenger with Governor Winthrop, 
Sir Richard Saltonstall and others equally well 
known. John Phillips, the father of Wendell, is 
described as being a good man, true as steel, and 
always trustworthy in the various relations of life. 
He lived in the fear of God and from his word 
received instruction for the guidance of his conduct. 
In a large mansion house which still stands on the 
lower corner of Beacon and Walnut streets in this 
city, Wendell Phillips, the eighth child in a family 
of nine children, was born on the 29th of November, 
1811. His father, Jolm Phillips, was the first mayor 
of Boston; his mother, who was a diligent student 
of the scriptures, brought up Wendell carefully in 
its truths. In August, 1822, in his eleventh year, 
he entered the Boston Latin School, which was then 
at the corner of Chapman place and School street, 
on the site of the present Parker House. He 
finished at the Latin School when he was sixteen 
and entered Harvard College. One of his class- 
mates says of him: "We were in the same class 
at school and college for five years. To my mind 
then, he was the most beautiful person I had ever 
seen, — handsome indeed in form and feature, — 
but what I mean by his beauty was his grace of 
character, his kindly, generous manners, his bright- 



18 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

ness of mind and his perfect purity and whiteness 
of soul — his face had a radiance from which shone 
forth the soul that dwelt within." 

At the age of fourteen he joined Lyman Beecher's 
Congregational Church on Hanover street. 

A personal friend asked Mr. Phillips not long 
before his death, "Mr. Phillips, did you ever con- 
secrate yourseK to God?" "Yes," he answered, 
"when I was a boy of fourteen years of age, in the 
old church at the North End, I heard Lyman Beecher 
preach on the theme, 'You belong to God,' and I 
went home after that service, threw myseK on the 
floor in my room, with locked doors, and prayed, 
'0 God, I belong to thee; take what is thine own. 
I ask this, that whenever a thing be wrong, it may 
have no temptation over me; whenever a thing be 
right, it may take no courage to do it.' From that 
day to this it has been so." 

George William Curtis says of Phillips' first 
speech in Faneuil Hall, when he was twenty-six 
years old: "In the annals of American speech 
there has been no such scene since Patrick Henry's 
electrical warning to George the Third. It was 
the greatest of oratorical triumphs, when a supreme 
emotion, a sentiment which is to mold a people 
anew, lifted the orator to adequate expression; 
three such scenes are illustrations in our history, — 
that of the speech of Patrick Henry at Williams- 
burg, of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall, of Abra- 
ham Lincoln at Gettysburg, — three, and there is no 
fourth." 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 19 

Among his classmates were Edmund Quincy, 
George Ticknor, John Lotlirop Motley, Charles 
Sumner and Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Wliat led Phillips to espouse the anti-slavery 
cause? He practised his profession for a while 
and everything pointed to a great success, when the 
event came which turned the whole current of his 
life, leading him to forsake all the high inducements 
which the law held out. Some say it was the sight 
of Garrison being dragged by a mob through the 
streets of Boston, October 21, 1835, after the 
destruction of the oflSce of The Liberator, which 
inclined PhiUips definitely to align himself with the 
cause of anti-slavery, but he always claimed it was 
his wife who brought this about — the wife of 
whom he wrote: "She is my counsel, my guide, 
my inspiration." He had married Miss Ann Terry 
Greene, whose uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Heiu-y 
G. Chapman, were close friends of Garrison, while 
the niece herself was ardently devoted to all that 
might better the condition of the slave. 

Be the cause what it may, Phillips, with his friend 
Edmund Quincy, joined the New England Anti- 
Slavery Society, an association founded about this 
time, and in March of 1836 the former made his 
maiden speech against slavery at Lynn, encour- 
aged, among others, by John G. Whittier, himself so 
whole-souled an agitator in the conflict. Follow- 
ing this came the speech at Faneuil HaU, occasioned 
by the horror with which was viewed the assassina- 
tion of Lovejoy at Alton, 111,, for criticising in his 



20 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

journal the lynching of a negro; a speech which 
certainly struck beyond all evading the keynote of 
the anti-slavery movement from first to last. On 
October 30, 1842, he made his great speech in 
Faneuil Hall, in the case of George Latimer, a 
fugitive slave arrested in Boston, and in March, 
1855, gave special evidence of his wonderful legal 
gifts, causing many to regret his apparently narrow 
consecration of them, when he argued before the 
Committee on Federal Relations of the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature in support of petitions for the 
removal of Judge Loring, who had issued the war- 
rant to arrest a slave named Anthony Burns. 

The New England Anti-Slavery Society was 
founded January 6, 1832, when Wendell Phillips 
was twenty-one, in the schoolroom of the African 
Baptist Church on Smith court, off Joy street. 
Said William Lloyd Garrison: "We have met here 
to-night in this obscure schoolhouse — our members 
are few and our influence limited; but, mark my 
prediction, Faneuil Hall shall ere long echo with the 
principles we have set forth. We shall shake the 
nation with their mighty power." 

Then began an agitation, says one writer, which 
for the marvel of its origin, the majesty of its pur- 
pose, the earnestness, unselfishness and ability of 
its appeals, the vigor of its assault, the deep, national 
convulsion it caused, the vast and beneficent changes 
it wrought and its widespread, indirect influence on 
all kindred moral questions, is without a parallel 
in history since Luther. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 21 

Wendell Phillips was a prophet, for he said: "I 
love inexpressibly these streets of Boston, over 
whose pavements my mother held up tenderly my 
baby feet; and if God grants me time enough, I will 
make them too pure to bear the footsteps of a slave." 

I saw not long ago, in a newspaper published in 
Boston about 100 years ago, an advertisement of a 
cow for sale, giving so many quarts of milk per 
day, and directly under it another advertisement of 
"A young, strong, healthy colored boy for sale, — 
will be sold low, to settle an estate." I blush for 
my native city that ever a man, made in the image 
of God and with an immortal soul, was publicly 
offered for sale and that a fugitive slave, Anthony 
Burns, was dragged through our streets as he was 
being returned to his master. 

Wendell Phillips said: "The Whigs one day 
invited Daniel Webster to address them in Faneuil 
Hall, but the great Daniel was pettish that day 
and declined. It was well," said Mr. Phillips, 
"for Faneuil Hall is a good refuge for a fugitive 
slave to flee to, but a poor place of refuge for 
recreant statesmen." 

It is interesting to recall that Abraham Lincoln, 
when a young man, walking with a friend, came to 
a slave mart at the South where slaves were being 
sold at auction. He turned to his friend and said: 
"Some day I will hit that institution and I will 
hit it hard." Years afterwards he closed the 
"Emancipation Proclamation" with these words: 
"Upon this act, taken after great deliberation, I 



22 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

invoke the blessing of Almighty God and the 
considerate judgment of mankind." 

Wendell Phillips said he once heard Daniel 
Webster make a three-hour speech and at its close 
one could not tell whether Webster loved slavery or 
hated it. He opposed Webster bitterly in the 
latter's advocacy of the Fugitive Slave Law. Not 
to quote his exact words, Webster said that the 
purpose of abolitionists "was distinctly treasonable," 
that the law would be executed in all the great 
cities. He called upon Massachusetts to discharge 
her duty of catching fugitive slaves. He said: 
"You of the South have as much right to recover 
your fugitive slaves as the North has to any of 
its rights, privileges of navigation and commerce. 
The excitement in Boston caused by the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law is fast subsiding and it is thought 
there is now no probability of any resistance if a 
fugitive should be arrested." 

When Commissioner Loring had given his decision 
that Anthony Burns should be returned to slavery, 
WendeU Phillips visited him in his cell. Burns 
looked up into his face with a pathetic appeal: "Mr. 
Phillips, has everything been done for me that can be 
done? Must I go back?" 

Mr, Phillips said: "I went over in my mind the 
history of Massachusetts. I thought of her schools, 
her colleges of learning, her churches, her courts, 
her benevolent and philanthropic institutions, her 
great names, her Puritans, her Pilgrims, and I was 
obliged to say, 'Burns, there isn't humanity, there 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 23 

isn't justice enough here to save you; you must 
go back.' Then I vowed anew," Mr. Phillips 
said, "before the everlasting God, that I would 
consecrate all the power he had given me to hasten 
the time when an innocent man should be safe on 
the sacred soil of the Puritans." Those are the 
words of the man in whose honor we are dedicating 
this statue to-day. 

The worldly side of Phillips' life may be summed 
up in the words: "He was born on Beacon street 
and he died on Common street." 

Wendell Phillips had an exceedingly tender con- 
science. At the funeral of Theodore Parker, who 
died in Italy and who was one year older than 
Mr. Phillips, and his neighbor and intimate friend 
and one of the early abolitionists, he related this 
incident of Theodore Parker: "A little boy in 
petticoats, in my fifth year," said Mr. Parker, "my 
father sent me from the field home. A spotted 
tortoise, in shallow water at the foot of a rhodora, 
caught my sight and I lifted my stick to strike it, 
when a voice within said: 'It is wrong.' I stood 
with lifted stick, in wonder at the new emotion, 
till rhodora and tortoise vanished from my sight. 
I hastened home and asked my mother what it was 
that told me it was wrong. Wiping a tear with 
her apron and taking me in her arms she said: 'Some 
men call it conscience but I prefer to call it the voice 
of God in the soul of man. If you listen to it and 
obey it, then it wiU speak clearer and clearer and 
always guide you right. But if you turn a deaf 



24 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

ear or disobey, then it will fade out, little by little, 
and leave you in the dark and without a guide.'" 
Wendell Phillips also heard the voice of God in his 
soul through all his life. 

Wendell Phillips died thirty years ago and I 
count it a great joy that I often met him and that 
through one of his family whom I knew he gave 
me his photograph with his own signature upon it. 

One day when I was quite a young boy he came 
into our store and I said: "Mr. PhiUips, would 
you give me your autograph?" and he said: "With 
pleasure, young man," and he wrote: "Peace, if 
possible, justice at any rate." And then he said: 
"Let me add a sentiment which De Tocqueville 
wrote to my friend Charles Sumner: 'Life is neither 
pain nor pleasure, but serious business to be entered 
upon with courage in the spirit of self-sacrifice. ' " 

On the 21st of October, 1835, an anti-slavery 
meeting held at 46 Washington street was broken 
up and William Lloyd Garrison attacked by what 
has been called the "Garrison Mob." He was 
hustled off to the jail in a carriage and the next day 
was dragged through Court street, with a rope 
around his waist. Sitting at his window in his law 
office was Wendell Phillips, and this scene stirred 
his Puritan blood to the very finger tips. 

On the 7th of November, 1837, Rev. Elijah Love- 
joy was murdered by a mob in Alton, 111., and his 
press destroyed and printing office burned. He had 
said in his paper: "I have sworn eternal hostility 
to slavery, and by the blessing of God I will never 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 25 

go back." When news of Love joy's death reached 
Boston, Rev. William Ellery Channing and one 
hundred of his fellow citizens applied for permission 
to hold a meeting of protest in Faneuil Hall. Elo- 
quent addresses were made by Doctor Channing 
and others. Suddenly there arose in the gallery 
James T. Austin, the Attorney-General of the 
Commonwealth, and with a loud and angry voice 
declared that Lovejoy had "died as the fool dieth," 
and compared his murderers with the men who 
destroyed the tea in Boston Harbor. 

Probably not more than a dozen persons present 
knew the young man who stepped upon the stage 
to reply, as he said: "Sir, when I heard the gentle- 
man lay down principles which place the mur- 
derers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, 
with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured 
lips" (pointing to the portraits in the hall) "would 
have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant Ameri- 
can, the slanderer of the dead." Here he was 
interrupted by hisses and uproar. At length he 
said: "Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on 
soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the 
blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned 
and swallowed him up." Here the uproar became 
furious, and the chairman, Hon. William Sturgis, 
and George Bond, Esq., came to his side and 
besought the audience to allow Mr. Phillips to 
proceed, which after a while he did, saying: 

"Fellow citizens, I cannot take back my words. 
Surely the Attorney-General, so long and well 



26 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

known here, needs not the aid of your hisses against 
one so young as I am — my voice never before 
heard within these walls." 

In sharp contrast to this scene I have just 
described, and fifty years after its occurrence, I 
was one of that great company who waited in long 
procession in Faneuil Hall to pass around the casket 
of Wendell PhiUips, which stood in almost the iden- 
tical spot where he first publicly put himself on the 
side of the slave and the oppressed. 

William Lloyd Garrison when twenty-five years 
old started the publication of his paper called The 
Liberator, advocating the immediate abolition of 
slavery, and with the sublime pledge: "I will be as 
harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. 
On this subject I do not wish to speak or write 
with moderation. I am in earnest. I will not 
equivocate; I wiU not excuse; I will not retreat a 
single inch; and I wiU be heard." 

On a building at the corner of Devonshire and 

Water streets in Boston is a bronze tablet with these 

words : 

On this spot 
William Lloyd Garrison 
Began the publishing of 
"The Liberator" 
Jan. 1, 1831. 
In a small chamber, 
Friendless and unseen, 
Toiled o'er his types 
One poor, unlearned young man; 
The place was dark, 
unfurnished and mean, 
Yet there the freedom of 
a race began. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 27 

I suppose we can hardly imagine the horrors of 
slavery in our country for the fifty years preceding 
the war. Let me read you a few lines from "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin" about "The Slave Warehouse," 
where slaves were sold at auction: 

The Slave Warehouse. 

"Then you shall be courteously entreated to call 
and examine, and shall find an abundance of hus- 
bands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, 
and young children, to be 'sold separately, or in 
lots to suit the convenience of the purchaser'; and 
that soul immortal, once bought with blood and 
anguish by the Son of God, when the earth shook 
and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, 
can be sold, leased, mortgaged, exchanged for 
groceries or dry goods, to suit the phases of trade, 
or the fancy of the purchaser." 

There is a tablet placed by the city on the site 
of the Phillips homestead on Essex street : 

Here 

Wendell Phillips 

resided during forty 

years, devoted by him 

to efforts to secure the 

aboUtion of African 
slavery in this Country. 



The charms of home, 

the enjoyment of wealth 

and learning, even 

the kindly recognition 

of his fellow citizens, 

were by him accounted as 

naught compared with duty. 



28 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

He lived to see justice 

triumphant, freedom 

universal, and to 

receive the 

tardy praises of his opponents. 

The blessings of the poor, 

the friendless, and the 
oppressed, enriched him. 



In Boston 

he was born 29th November, 1811, 

and died 2nd February, 1884. 

This tablet was erected in 1894 

by order of the 

City Council of Boston. 

Let me quote a few words from Joseph Cook's 
estimate of Wendell Phillips, given in Tremont 
Temple on the Monday after Phillips died: "Whom 
God crowns, let no man try to discrown. There 
lies dead on his shield in yonder street an unsullied 
soldier of unpopular reform, a spotlessly disinter- 
ested champion of the oppressed, the foremost 
orator of the English-speaking world in recent years, 
the largest and latest, let us hope not the last, of 
the Puritans, a servant of the most high God, a 
man on the altar of whose heart the coals of fire 
were kindled by a breath from the divine justice 
and tenderness." 

"He joined the Anti-Slavery Society in 1836; 
but his real membership in the anti-slavery ranks 
began from a time in which he saw Garrison mobbed 
in 1835. He became a supporter of the Union in 
his fiftieth year, 1861, and in that very year was 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 29 

himself mobbed in this city. He was twenty-six 
years old when he delivered his famous address at 
Faneuil Hall on the murder of Lovejoy. He was 
seventy-three years old at his death. It may be 
said that from 1837 to his last hour he was a pillar 
of fire, through which God looked in the morning 
watch of better ages to come, and troubled the host 
of his enemies, and took off their chariot wheels. 

"This man almost never unveiled to mortal gaze 
the holy of holies of his spirit in which he dwelt 
alone with God. Through all his Ufe he was a 
Calvinist. He said at Theodore Parker's funeral: 
' Mine is not Parker's faith. Mine is the old 
faith of New England. On these subjects he and 
I rarely speak.' 

"I heard the authoress of the 'Battle Hymn of 
the Repubhc' say to a hushed assembly: 'Wendell 
Phillips was orthodox of the orthodox. He would 
not worship with the churches of Boston; but in 
the darkest days of the struggle with slavery he 
and some of those who were most nearly of his own 
heart were accustomed to meet on the Sabbath in 
private homes to observe the holy service of the 
Lord's supper. The faith of this servant of human- 
ity was not a creed merely, but a life." 

I quote from one of Phillips' speeches: "When 
I stood upon the pearly shores of Genoa and gazed 
upon that magnificent ship of the line, 'The Ohio,' 
her graceful masts tapering towards the sky, the 
translucent waters reflecting her majestic form, 
I thanked God I was an American citizen, but when 



30 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

I thought that from underneath those decks there 
should boom forth a salute to uphold American 
slavery, I hung my head in shame for my country." 

Let me entreat the young people here to-day, by 
the memory of all Phillips and Garrison and all who 
were with them suffered, by the sight of the flags in 
Doric Hall of our State House stained with the life- 
blood of those who carried them, both white and 
black, by the beautiful bronze "Shaw Memorial" 
with its inspiring words, to appreciate this land of 
ours and to love their country next to their God. 

No doubt Wendell Philhps, in his hours of strife, 
when his early friends seemed to have forsaken him 
and when the battle raged the fiercest, had an abid- 
ing faith that God would eventually wipe out from 
this country the curse of slavery and that right 
should prevail. Faber's words apply to him: 

"Oh, it is hard to work for God, 
To rise and take his part 
Upon this battlefield of earth, 
And not sometimes lose heart! 



"Thrice blest is he to whom is given 
The instinct that can tell 
That God is on the field when he 
Is most invisible." 



Acting Mayor Coleman said the program read 
"Franklin Benjamin Sanborn," but the state knows 
the next speaker as plain Frank Sanborn, the sage 
of Concord. 

When he was introduced he received an ovation 
and was given three rousing cheers. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 31 



REMARKS 

BY Frank B. Sanborn 



Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

In addressing this vast assembly one would need 
the far-reaching voice of Phillips, or that more 
wonderful utterance of his hero, Daniel O'Connell, 
in whose praise I heard him recite those lines of an 
unfriendly English poet, Bulwer, in his "New 
Timon," commencing: 

"Once to my sight that giant form was given, 
Walled with wide air, roofed by the boundless heaven"; 

and to those thousands on thousands, a countless 
multitude, O'Connell's voice glided, easy as a bird 
might glide. To me that effort would be hopeless; 
I must address the half that may hear me. 

Addressing in Faneuil Hall, where in 1834 Phillips' 
magic voice had not yet been heard, John Quincy 
Adams, that "old man eloquent," eulogizing Lafa- 
yette, recently dead in France, said: "We were not 
needful to his glory; he was needful to ours." 
So Boston may say to-day of Wendell Phillips. 
She had many eloquent sons, but he was needed to 
give Boston the glory of eloquence above all the 
Americans of his time. But that was not our chief 
reason for unveiling his statue to-day. Years 
before, and while Phillips was a Boston schoolboy, 



32 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

Mr. Adams, then in Monroe's cabinet along with 
Calhoun, and fresh from a cheerless conversation 
with that champion of negro slavery, wrote in his 
secret diary: "Slavery is the great and foul stain 
upon our Union; and it is a contemplation worthy 
of the most exalted soul, whether its total aboHtion 
is practicable, and what means would accomplish 
it at the smallest cost of human suffering. This 
object is vast in its compass, awful in its prospects, 
sublime and beautiful in its issue. A life devoted 
to it would be nobly spent or sacrificed." 

Such was the life we honor to-day, and we rejoice 
that it was not sacrificed, as so many others were, 
before the great purpose was achieved. 

For the career that he deliberately chose, putting 
aside all thought of wealth or fame, Phillips had 
many qualifications. First of all, intrepid courage; 
not merely the moral courage which every reformer 
needs, but that invincible physical courage which 
distinguishes heroes. It was said of General Wash- 
ington by Jefferson that he "met personal danger 
with the calmest unconcern." So did Phillips. I 
knew him intimately in the period of mobs in Bos- 
ton, and I was once or twice mobbed with him. 
He never quailed or was discomposed by the loudest 
mob. He did not think them dangerous, but had 
they been so he would not have feared them; he was 
insensible to fear — literally so. Fear is a common 
and often a useful human quality, but it was lacking 
in PhiUips. The other needful quaUties, intellectual 
and moral, he had — tact in deahng with men, 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 33 

courtesy to all, a clear head, a good memory, fidelity 
in friendship, composure of mind and boundless good 
nature. He could perform that very difficult feat 
for a Boston patrician — he could change his mind. 
He disliked to do it, but he did it on more than one 
occasion; most notably when, in the spring of 1861, 
he passed from the disunion side to the endangered 
but finally triumphant side of the Union, and gave 
his great speech in the Music Hall under the Stars 
and Stripes. 

My time is brief, and I shall call to my aid, in 
portraying concisely the period of his life assigned to 
me, the testimony of an older friend, who had wit- 
nessed his whole public mission, and who outlived 
him. 

A few years before the death of Wendell Phillips, 
by a painful disease, his elder associate in the anti- 
slavery cause, Bronson Alcott, who had in 1829 
come up from Connecticut to Boston to teach that 
confident city the best way to educate children, 
and had given her grown-up population serious and 
sincere lessons in liberty and toleration, — Bronson 
Alcott, in the vale of years (it was his eighty-third 
year), surveying the whole career of PhiUips, gave 
this outline of it in a comprehensive short poem: 

Wendell Phillips at Three-score and Ten. 
People's Attorney, servant of the Right, 
Pleader for all shades of the solar ray, — 
Complexions dusky, yellow, red or white, — 
Who, in thy country's and thy time's despite, 
Hast only questioned, "What will Duty say?" 
And followed swiftly in her narrow way! 



34 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

Tipped is thy tongue with golden eloquence; 
All-honeyed accents fall from off thy lips, — 
Each eager listener his full measure sips, 
Yet runs to waste the sparkling opulence. 

The scorn of bigots and the worldling's flout, 
If Time long held thy merit in suspense, 
Hastening repentant now, with pen devout. 
Impartial History dare not leave thee out. 

We are assembled here to-day to bear testimony 
that history has found, and has summoned sculpture 
to record, in noble lineaments, what this Attorney 
of the Right was in his outward aspect, as he trod 
these his native streets, and did much to make 
them "too free to endure the footsteps of a slave" 
or a slave trader. 

He did not Hve to see the full restoration of the 
freedman to those rights of education and of suffrage 
that he should have had; but within the past few 
weeks, while this monument stood here veiled, 
awaiting its dedication, that Supreme Court which 
in our early time was the frowning bastion of oppres- 
sion, fortified with all the technicalities and the 
rigmarole of musty law, to protect the chain and the 
whip of the slave driver, has at last uttered the words 
of truth and soberness which secure to the negro 
all the voting rights of the white man and the 
red man in this Republic, the peacemaker of the 
world. 

Phillips would have rejoiced in this slow and 
grudging decree, rendered unanimously from the high 
seat of justice, and by those well-gowned men who, 
some of them, in the foUies of their youth, defended 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 35 

negro slavery, some by arms, others by the sophistries 
of legal interpretation. As Phillips himself used to 
say, the hour has come 

"When nations slowly wise and meanly just 
To buried merit raise the tardy bust"; 

and when Justice, long held back by selfishness and 
arrogance, at last holds out her impartial shield over 
that race, at once the most loyal and forgiving and 
the most injured of mankind. 



Acting Mayor Coleman, in introducing William 
Monroe Trotter, said that nothing was so appro- 
priate as for the colored race to have a spokesman 
in dedicating a monument to Wendell Phillips, and 
that there could be no more fit representative than 
William Monroe Trotter, whom every Bostonian 
who is half alive knows. 



36 WENDELL PHILLIPS 



ADDRESS 

By William Monroe Trotter 



Wendell Phillips was the originator of the policy 
of reconstruction of the United States of America 
adopted, after the war of the Slave-holders' Rebel- 
lion, on the basis of freedom. He was the pioneer 
advocate of the ballot for the Afro-American. No 
son rendered this Republic greater service or thereby 
did more for its permanence. No human being 
ever did more for the colored Americans. Of the 
great abolition movement Lundy was the pioneer. 
Garrison the editor and organizer, Phillips the 
orator, Mrs. Stowe the author, Whittier the poet, 
Sumner the political statesman, and John Brown 
the captain and martyr. Of these none made 
as great personal sacrifice as Phillips, save John 
Brown; none had such prophetic statesmanship, 
save Sumner. 

Declaring human slavery to be the sum of all 
villainies, hating it with a holy wrath, the worst 
feature of it in his eyes being the return of the freed- 
man to bondage, possessing unequaled ability to 
voice his wrath, Phillips was a most powerful force 
in creating by organized agitation public sentiment 
for the abolition of slavery. When, at very thought 
of the election of the non-abolitionist, Abraham 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 37 

Lincoln, the slave-holding states rushed into seces- 
sion and made war upon the Union and Massa- 
chusetts rose in patriotic eagerness to enlist, 
Wendell Phillips was the first of the moral abolition- 
ists to welcome war for the eradication of slavery. 
Early in 1861 he declared that the only mistake the 
abolitionists had made was in thinking that the 
nation was enough civilized for slavery to be abol- 
ished by pubUc discussion and appeal to conscience. 
The North, he said, was civilized, but the South 
was barbarous and therefore slavery must be abol- 
ished by the arbitrament of arms. 

From the first, Phillips announced that this war 
of the Slave-holders' Rebellion would result in 
freedom. He was the first to publicly demand that 
emancipation be announced as the object of the 
war. This he said would arouse holy enthusiasm in 
the North. Before the year 1861 had ended he 
called for the enlistment of black men as soldiers of 
the Union and for congressional action abolishing 
slavery. His cry was "Freedom to every man 
beneath the stars and death to every institution 
that threatens the future of the Republic." 

Wendell Phillips was potent in creating a public 
sentiment which insisted upon Lincoln's procla- 
mation of emancipation. Of this immortal docu- 
ment he said: "To three millions of slaves this 
proclamation is sunlight, scattering the despair of 
centuries, and the blessings of the poor bear it up to 
the throne of God." Then at once he set in to make 
this emancipation secure. He feared an adverse 



38 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

decision by the Supreme Court, that bulwark of 
slavery. He wanted not only that slaves be 
declared free, but that slavery as an institution 
be abolished. It was yet 1863 when he demanded 
of Congress a constitutional amendment abolishing 
slavery, providing that "no state shall make any 
DISTINCTION among its citizens on account of race 
or colour." Thus Wendell Phillips started the move- 
ment for the Thirteenth Amendment, which was 
passed by Congress and ratified by states in 1865. 

This was the beginning of Phillips' work for the 
reconstruction into the United States of those 
states which had attempted secession in order to 
perpetuate the system of human slavery. For this 
work are the Afro-Americans most indebted to 
Wendell Phillips. Of the work for the abolition of 
African slavery in these United States by agitation 
and organization, William Lloyd Garrison was the 
pioneer and leader, with Phillips as his lieutenant 
and partner. Of the work of securing freedom and 
gaining citizenship and suffrage for the colored 
American, Wendell Phillips was the pioneer and 
leader, with young Frank Sanborn as his lieutenant 
and Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens as his political 
partners. 

It was when emancipation had come that Phillips 
showed his true greatness, for at the time when it 
could be said that the band of abolitionists had 
triumphed Phillips refused to take the easy and 
pleasurable position of him who has won his fight 
and received the plaudits of the people. The great 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 39 

Garrison and his followers, even before the Thirteenth 
Amendment was enacted, had said that their cause 
had triumphed, hence the anti-slavery organizations 
should be disbanded and their newspaper organs 
discontinued. Phillips said the fight was not over, 
freedom had yet to be made complete and secure; 
not until the freed slave had been made an equal 
citizen with protection was the triumph of the 
abolitionists complete. Phillips prevailed. Garrison 
resigned and wrote The Liberator's valedictory. 
Phillips was elected president of the American Anti- 
Slavery Society and manager of the Anti-Slavery 
Standard. 

Quick and positive was the vindication of Phillips' 
statesmanship. From 1864 he had been advocating 
the simple justice of education, land and the ballot 
for the freedmen. Phillips' reconstruction policy 
held that human freedom was above all else, and 
only by entirely uprooting slavery could there be 
any permanence for the reunited Republic. The 
only other reconstruction was that adopted by 
President Andrew Johnson, restoring the government 
to the unchanged whites, the former masters, who 
promptly remanded all the blacks to involuntary 
servitude and peonage by the nefarious "black laws," 
while the severed ears, hands and feet of ex-slaves 
strewed the highways of the rural South. 

Phillips believed with us that there can be no 
freedom without equality and no equality without 
the ballot. So he fought on with organization and 
agitation, creating a public sentiment that enabled 



40 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

the noble, far-sighted Stevens and the great Sumner 
to bring about the enactment of the Fourteenth 
Amendment, estabhshing full citizenship for the 
colored American with equality before the law, and 
then the Fifteenth Amendment, establishing impar- 
tiality of suffrage for black and white alike. 

This was the afternoon of the career of Wendell 
Phillips. He redeemed the United States of America 
from its great sin of human slavery. He was first to 
advocate that emancipation be the declared purpose 
of the war, first to urge that Congress emancipate, 
among the first to call for emancipation as a war 
measure, first to urge the enlistment of colored 
soldiers, which our own Governor Andrew, from 
yonder State House, was the first Governor to carry 
out. PhiDips led the way to the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment. He led the way to the Fourteenth, then to the 
Fifteenth Amendment as the greatest private citizen 
of the nation. He was the pioneer in advocacy of 
suffrage for colored Americans. He saw to it that 
slavery should be torn up by the roots and that as 
far as concerns federal law every man, white and 
black, should have citizenship and suffrage. That is 
why we Americans of color to-day do honor to 
Wendell Phillips, and we owe our ability to stand 
here to-day, in possession of suffrage, to him. 

Long has Boston deferred this honor to her illus- 
trious son. It is thirty-one years since his death, 
and meantime statues have arisen to others, to his 
companions, Garrison and Sumner, to his antago- 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 41 

nist, Daniel Webster, yet none to him. Sad the 
neglect, yet how meet, yes, providential, that it has 
ended this day and year. For this is the semi- 
centennial anniversary of the victory of the army of 
the Union over the armies of slavery; it is the fiftieth 
anniversary year of the enactment and ratification 
of the constitutional amendment which destroyed 
the system of slavery. It is the fiftieth Independ- 
ence Day since emancipation, celebrating that 
immortal document which declared that "all men 
are born free and equal," that they are "endowed 
with certain inalienable rights among which are 
life and liberty," that "governments derive their 
just powers from the consent of the governed." To 
this Declaration of Independence Phillips was loyal 
when he refused loyalty to the Constitution which 
recognized human slavery. 

That is not all. His statue is dedicated almost at 
the very time when the Supreme Court which Phil- 
lips doubted has aflBrmed and vindicated that Fif- 
teenth Amendment which was the crowning work 
of his great career, thus vindicating Wendell 
PhiUips. 

Thank God for this day. Let us colored Ameri- 
cans here humbly resolve, standing at this our newest 
shrine, that so far as in us lies, using his methods of 
agitation, organization and courage, with the utmost 
of our power, we shall see to it that this work of 
Wendell PhiUips for freedom, for equality, for the 
ballot, shall not be destroyed, shall not be defeated, 



42 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

shall not be circumvented, so long as we shall live 
and our children and our children's children. 



The last of the four addresses was by Michael J. 
Jordan, Esq., introduced by Acting Mayor Coleman 
as an able Boston attorney, prominent in the work 
for home rule for Ireland and as president of the 
Boston Central Branch of the United Irish League. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 43 



ADDRESS 

BY Michael J. Jordan 



On the 30th of March, 1870, President Grant 
proclaimed the Fifteenth Amendment to the Con- 
stitution of the United States. This amendment 
removed the last barrier to the freedom of the 
colored race. One of the greatest reforms had been 
perfected; the program of abolition was accom- 
plished. The actors in that great reform saw their 
work done. They might well claim that they had 
done their full duty, but Phillips modestly esti- 
mated the result of his own work in this great charter 
of freedom by saying that it had taught him faith in 
human nature. 

And the great mind of Phillips realized that a 
principle only had been established, and his great 
heart felt that he had reached merely a new stepping- 
stone on the road of human progress. After thirty 
years of toil and difficulties which would have dis- 
heartened most men, Phillips announced his new 
program in the following words: "Welcome new 
duties. We sheathe no sword; we only turn the 
front of the army upon a new foe." 

With such a belief in the hopes and destinies of 
mankind, with such a record of past achievement 
and with such a new program, Phillips immediately 



44 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

turned himself to the next great crying questions of 
the day. He had been blessed in many ways in 
his career. He joined a robust body to a brilliant 
mind. He had the satisfaction of a home life unsur- 
passed in its beauty, devotion and pathos. It was 
his own surroundings that influenced his next public 
step. 

He early appeared before the committee of the 
Legislature demanding the right of the ballot for 
women. It was impossible for Phillips to see merely 
half of the truth. He realized that freedom under 
proper bounds was the great panacea for the evils 
which beset all governments. And if freedom was 
necessary, half of it could not be sufficient. He 
therefore demanded it in its entirety, and insisted 
that the right of voting should be given to women. 

However people may disagree about the need of 
this reform, it must be a striking lesson to all stu- 
dents of political history that such a keen mind as 
that of Wendell Phillips gave his fiat not only to the 
right but to the need of women exercising the ballot. 
It was not only that he thought women in the 
higher spheres of social and economic life might 
benefit the world when they obtained the right to 
speak their mind through the ballot, but what 
attracted him and determined his action most 
strongly was the condition of the women crowded in 
the great industrial centers of New England. 

Labor should be free. To make labor free one- 
half the laborers now without the franchise should 
be given the right to vote. He claimed that the dis- 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 45 

franchised half were women. He therefore joined in 
his mind the labor movement, the franchise move- 
ment and the temperance movement. They were 
the great trinity of principles which he now inscribed 
upon his flag. It was a habit in those days among 
his enemies to refer to Phillips as a dreamer, but 
whoever studies his speeches on the labor movement 
will soon see that he was one of the first of the 
modern reformers who really understood the needs 
of the working classes. He was certainly one of the 
first who outlined a practical program for the 
advancement of the workingman. He was one of 
the first who saw the dangers of large corporations 
and who suggested remedies. 

It was a curious coincidence that Phillips in 
America and an Irish economist. Professor Kearns, 
were the first two public men in modern times to 
write not only intelligently but sympathetically on 
the questions of trade unions. The world a few 
years ago was startled by the claims which Lloyd- 
George advanced upon the wealth of the British 
empire. Wendell Phillips forty years ago outlined 
a similar plan. He challenged the opponents of the 
labor movement by saying: "We will crumble up 
wealth by making it unprofitable to the rich." "Is 
it just or is it safe," he said, "that man should be 
less valuable than money?" For the purpose of 
insuring the laborers of America constant employ- 
ment and for building up the infant industries of 
the country Phillips proclaimed himseK a protec- 
tionist. It seems at first sight difficult to understand 



46 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

the opponent of monopoly as a protectionist. But 
Phillips saw that neither peace nor freedom could 
exist in the country if there was not permanent 
employment for the masses. And permanent em- 
ployment for the masses in his time at least could 
only be secured by the large development of indus- 
tries. His answer to the free traders he gave in 
some such form as this: "Free trade is a splendid 
principle. Any boy can understand when a principle 
is right. But it takes three-score years and ten to 
determine when that principle can be tried, when 
it should be modified, when it should be dropped. 
Until the Sermon on the Mount becomes not merely 
a beautiful hymn but the practical guide of business 
men in life," he said, "free trade was impossible." 
O'Reilly justly estimated the great debt of gratitude 
which the working people owed Phillips, as well as 
the great accomplishment of Phillips' life in advo- 
cating the rights of labor, when he said: 

"And the greatest of all are the unknown wreaths on his coffin 
lid laid down 
By the toil-stained hands of workmen, their sob, their kiss, 
his crown." 

No call came to him from any cause that was 
just that he did not receive with sympathy. To 
the struggle of the Cretans, trying then to throw 
off the yoke of the Turks, he sent a message burning 
with the love of freedom. To consolidated Italy 
he sent a message glorifying the new country which 
had been built up upon the cradle of Christianity. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 47 

He recognized the claims of Italy, the mother of 
the intellectual awakening of Europe, and hailed 
her as "my country." When Ireland called, 
Phillips answered with all the chivalry of the 
unstained champion of freedom. The service 
Phillips rendered the Irish race in Ireland and 
America by his splendid espousal of Ireland's cause 
can scarcely be overestimated. 

Forty-five years are merely a speck in the develop- 
ment of the country. In the era of thought forty- 
five years sometimes mark a long step. Forty-five 
years ago the real facts concerning Ireland were as 
little known as are to-day the condition of the troops 
that are fighting on the peninsula of Gallipoli. 
England always censored Irishmen. The public 
knew nothing of Ireland's struggle, and sympathized 
little with Ireland's claims. Although the streets of 
Boston, almost from its earliest days, had re-echoed 
to the weary tread of the Irish emigrant, forty-five 
years ago Boston knew nothing of the antecedent 
or actual conditions which sent the emigrants in 
thousands to our shores. It was then with 
unbounded assurance that James Anthony Froude 
reached Boston in the early '70's. How little now 
we seem to be able to understand that a professor 
of the University of Oxford should travel across 
the ocean with the sole purpose of blackening the 
character of one of the greatest races in Europe. 
And yet that was Froude's avowed purpose. He 
hoped to have a sympathetic audience in Boston, 
but one man made it impossible for him, and that 



48 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

man was the immortal Phillips. There is not in 
the whole range of human history a more inspiring 
spectacle than this great man, the descendant of 
the Puritans, a stanch Protestant in his beliefs, 
assuming the championship of a race that was 
despised for its faith as well as for its courage. 
Phillips answered Froude and drove him from 
Boston. 

Froude stated in his address: "We have tried 
to form a government for thirty years; our alter- 
native now is extermination." The thought of 
exterminating a race that had produced countless 
saints and martyrs, that had given to the modern 
world the greatest champions of human liberty 
in the person of Burke and O'Connell, revolted 
the nature and fired the soul of Phillips. His 
prompt reply to the traducer of a people will forever 
preserve immortal the name and memory of Phillips 
in the archives of Irish history. By his answer to 
Froude he merits the gratitude of liberty-loving 
people all over the world. 

Phillips' acquaintance with Ireland was not a 
new one. He had early learned the genius of the 
race in the difficult work of sculpture; for Martin 
Milmore, a native of the County of Sligo, Ireland, 
had made the only bust of Phillips. Phillips had 
visited Ireland. He sat under O'Connell. He was 
afterwards destined to know O'Reilly as a friend, 
and to appreciate Parnell as one of the greatest 
leaders of his day. No one ever better understood 
them, or more ably taught to the world not only 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 49 

the great genius of O'Connell but the gratitude 
which the world owes to O'Connell for his great 
efforts on behaK of mankind. 

If any other sympathizer with the destinies of 
Ireland had delivered the eulogy which Phillips 
made on O'Connell his enthusiasm might have 
provoked some criticism. Phillips was not a man, 
however, to allow his reason to be influenced by 
emotions only. His analysis of O'Connell's life 
and labors is a logical, philosophical treatise on the 
power of agitation, and on the genius of its great 
creator, O'Cormell. What do we Americans owe 
to O'Connell? I shall ask Phillips himself to tell 
us. He tells us that O'Connell anticipated the 
wisdom of Lincoln in proclaiming the government 
of the people. He tells us that he forged the great 
weapon of agitation which the English abolitionists 
adopted and which Garrison himself carried to these 
shores. He taught the tyrants on the throne that 
they could not withstand the marshaled conscience 
of the people. He grafted democracy upon the 
British empire. It took O'Connell thirty years, 
he says, of patient and sagacious labor to mold 
the elements whose existence no man, however 
wise, discerned before. 

It was not merely the philosophy of O'Connell's 
methods which Phillips admired, but he saw the 
greatness of O'Connell's diplomacy. Phillips knew 
that Ireland as a small entity could neither attract 
nor hold the attention of the world. He therefore 
saw the wisdom of O'Connell's movement in asso- 



50 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

ciating Ireland with the great reform movements 
in England, with anti-slavery, with the corn laws 
and the ballot laws. "If I were an Irishman," 
says Phillips, "I would cleave to the empire." 
The policy which John E. Redmond, the leader of 
the Irish parliamentary party, is to-day advocating 
is that which O'Connell inaugurated and which 
Phillips approved. No man has ever paid higher 
tribute to the integrity of O'Connell than has Wen- 
dell Phillips. He loved to quote the scenes that 
took place in the House of Commons when O'Con- 
nell, all alone defying the Parliament that conquered 
Napoleon, was addressed by some advocates of 
slavery. They promised him twenty-eight votes on 
every measure pertaining to Ireland if he would 
not speak against slavery. O'Connell answered: 
"May my hand forget its cunning, and my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth, if to save Ireland, 
even Ireland, I forget the negro one single hour." 
Wendell Phillips himself has said that no genius 
can make marble more speaking than the life of a 
great man and the scenes of his labors. Why, 
then, do we commemorate PhilKps' life by the 
erection to him of this magnificent monument? 
It is because the City of Boston wishes that this 
marble should speak to the generations yet to come 
of a life of unsullied devotion to the welfare of the 
human race. The Boston that stood by his cradle, 
which nursed and mothered him and wept over 
his bier, has erected this monument to speak not 
only to the student and to the statesman but to 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 51 

the throbbing masses of our population. She wishes 
this marble to bespeak forever the life of the noblest 
purpose given so unselfishly to the good of his 
fellow man. 

Let people of the colored race take their chil- 
dren to this monument as to a shrine, and teach 
them that while truth and justice may slumber 
they can never die. The people of Irish birth and 
blood, as they pass this monument, will pour out 
their hearts in thankfulness to the Creator that 
He gave to their new home such a historian of their 
race and such a defender of their cause. 

Every good man who looks upon this monument 
will learn from it the duty of perseverance, even 
against overwhelming odds, when fighting the cause 
of humanity and justice. 

The descendant of the same New England blood 
which ran in Phillips' veins will ever feel proud of 
the institutions which have given to America 
such a spotless champion of truth and liberty. And 
may the coming generations imbibe from this monu- 
ment the lesson of the great reformer's life: 

"The right to be free, the hope to be just, 
And the guard against selfish greed." 



52 WENDELL PHILLIPS 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 

By William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. 



Out from the Ages' bloody scroll 
The names of kings and soldiers roll, 
Leaving a scanty page to tell 
What fate the myriads befell. 

The generations all relate 
A struggle blurred by strife and hate, 
Of mankind's tortuous ascent 
Towards Liberty's enfranchisement. 

Primeval man of savage lust, 

Who knew no God of Love to trust. 

Has now become a citizen 

Who shares his rights with other men. 

The bridge that spans this far advance 
Is no mere edifice of chance, 
But, stone by stone, and dream by dream. 
It rose as mankind grew supreme. 

Aspiring towards the stars, it stands 
A monument to minds and hands 
That in each age have sought to free 
The world from sin and slavery. 

The new world that Columbus found 
Is Freedom's richest seeding ground ; 
Its champions have ever stood 
As prophets of man's brotherhood. 

To-day, a champion we greet, 
Whose purpose never knew defeat; 
Whose reasoned words in purest flow 
Could flash with lightning's vivid glow. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 53 

An orator in Nature's scheme, 
With Human Rights his lofty theme, 
He cast his lot with those who gave 
Their lives to liberate the Slave. 

Proscribed and hated, scorned and jeered, 
Erect he stood, nor ever feared 
The angry outbursts of the mob; 
He only heard the negro's sob. 

He lived to see his dreams come true; 
Scorn into adulation grew; 
Yet trumpet-like came his appeal 
When he might serve the public weal. 

Welcome, great soul, to thy loved streets 
Where Boston's civic heart still beats 
In deep response and sympathy ; 
Herself she honors, hon'ring thee. 



54 WENDELL PHILLIPS 



HISTORY OF WENDELL PHILLIPS STATUE 



November 28, 1911.— Mayor John F. Fitzgerald 
sent a letter to the City Council, suggesting some 
"permanent memorial" to Wendell Phillips, as sug- 
gestion of Councilor E. E. Smith. 

November 29, 1911. — In Faneuil Hall, at closing 
session of Phillips Centenary celebration by the 
National Independent Political (now Equal Rights) 
League and New England Suffrage League, Mayor 
Fitzgerald asks citizens to form a committee to pro- 
mote a Phillips Memorial. Motion made by W. M. 
Trotter, secretary, for city and state to erect a statue 
and for chairman, M. J. Jordan, to appoint com- 
mittee. Committee of three appointed, M. J. Jordan, 
E. T. Morris, W. M. Trotter, to organize a memo- 
rial committee to cooperate with Mayor. 

November 30, 1911. — William D. Brigham added 
to the committee and Brigham, Trotter and Jordan 
begin campaign, letter writing and seeing members 
of City Council, etc. 

December 9, 1911. — Wilham D. Brigham has 
letter in Boston Herald December 12, 1911. 
Boston Art Commission tell Mayor they plan a 
statuary mall along Charles street on Public Garden 
as suitable place for proposed Phillips statue. 

January 9, 1912. — By invitation of the Mayor 
five of memorial committee, Hon. A. E. Pillsbury, 




SCULPTOR S MODEL AS ACCEPTED BY THE BOSTON ART COMMISSION, AND FROM 
WHICH THE BRONZE STATUE WAS CAST, 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 55 

Mr. F. J. Garrison, M. J. Jordan, Esq., Mr. William 
D. Brigham and Mr. William Monroe Trotter, 
appear before Art Commission and argue for full 
length statue. 

March 27, 1912. — Memorial Committee met in 
Aldermanic Chamber with Mayor Fitzgerald and 
Art Commission and ask for heroic size, outdoor 
statue. Mayor agrees to ask City Council to appro- 
priate $20,000 for statue. Committee on permanent 
organization of Wendell PhilHps Memorial Associa- 
tion appointed: William D. Brigham, chairman; 
W. M. Trotter, secretary; Dr. A. M. Abbott, J. E. 
Savage, M. J. Jordan. From this came the Wendell 
Phillips Memorial Association. 

April 14, 1912. — Mayor authorized Art Commis- 
sion to give prizes for a design for statue. 

June 24, 1912. — City Council vote on appropria- 
tion of $20,000 from tax levy for Wendell Phillips 
statue. Messrs. Brigham, Jordan and Trotter tele- 
graph thanks to Mayor, who was in Baltimore, Md. 



56 WENDELL PHILLIPS 



DEDICATION OF WENDELL PHILLIPS STATUE 
From "The Guardian" 



A few minutes before six o'clock Monday after- 
noon, July 5, 1915, the veil fell from the $20,000 
bronze statue of Wendell Phillips in the Public 
Garden, and a crowd of from 5,000 to 6,000 
acclaimed with cheers and patriotic song Daniel 
Chester French's almost speaking memorial of 
Boston's famous orator and abolitionist. 

As the sun was sinking behind rain clouds in the 
west, Master John C. PhiUips, Jr., six years old, the 
great grandnephew of Wendell Phillips, the man who 
declared that if he lived long enough he would make 
Boston streets too pure to bear the footsteps of a 
slave, supported by his father. Dr. John C. Phillips of 
Wenham, Mass., pulled the cord releasing the mantle 
which for several weeks has veiled the statue of 
Phillips on the Public Garden, and the noble bronze 
stood revealed, gazing over the throng of citizens 
assembled for its dedication. 

As the folds fell away from the figure of the 
great abohtionist, "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!" burst 
from a chorus of colored women gathered from 
Boston churches, and then the first song gave way 
to "America." 

Thirty-one years after his death, fifty years after 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 57 

the victory of the army of the Union over the. slave- 
holders, a half-century after the enactment of the 
Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, 
a statue was unveiled of that marvelous Boston 
orator, that bright star in the constellation of super- 
lative abolitionists, greatest of all after the Eman- 
cipation Proclamation, unveiled in the city of his 
birth, the scene of his wondrous labors for humanity, 
a statue erected in recognition of his worth and 
greatness by the city government itself. 

Though Boston was guilty of neglect and tardiness, 
as if by the hand of Providence, the consummation 
came so appropriately in this semicentennial year 
of abolition, and on Independence Day, set aside to 
mark the issuance of that document which Phillips 
declared gave every human being beneath the flag a 
right to freedom and equality. 

It was a memorable occasion, from the time when 
the man who as a boy had loved and revered Wendell 
Phillips and honored his memory ever since, Mr. 
William D. Brigham, was privileged to inaugurate 
the exercises to unveil a statue which he as secretary 
of the Wendell Phillips Memorial Association had 
done so much to bring about, until this same man, 
seeing the triumph of his life accomplished, was 
called out upon the platform to acknowledge the 
cheers of the multitude as they stood looking into 
the triumphant face of the "silver-tongued orator of 
abolition " in bronze, while the sun sank behind 
the clouds which had parted to let down the sun- 
light only when the hour for dedication had come. 



58 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

Except for the comforts which the heavy showers 
prevented, there was nothing to mar; every feature 
was fit and appropriate. Fervent was the prayer 
by Rev. Montrose W. Thornton, pastor of historic 
Charles Street Church and also chairman of the 
executive committee of the local Equal Rights League 
branch. Sterhng and practical the tribute of the 
Acting Mayor, George W. Coleman, a man of Wen- 
dell Phillips' principles, as was every speaker. 

Illuminating and forceful was the life story by 
Secretary Brigham. 

Sweet and inspiring was the singing by the colored 
singers, led by Dr. Walter O. Taylor and J. Sherman 
Jones, and the music by the brass band of Company 
L, Sixth Regiment, of Massachusetts Militia. Pic- 
turesque and touching was the encomium by the 
only survivor of New England abolitionists, Frank 
Sanborn, now eighty-three years old, still active, 
a coworker with Phillips. Earnest and unqualified 
was the praise by the spokesman for colored Ameri- 
cans, William Monroe Trotter, himself a devotee 
laboring to save the fruits of Phillips' labors, the 
hero his father's friend. Fired with eloquence born 
of love was the eulogy of Ireland's friend and the 
friend of all oppressed, by Michael J. Jordan, son of 
O'Connell's island home. Tuneful and noble the 
psean of the poet of the occasion, grandson of Phil- 
lips' party leader, bearing his name, William Lloyd 
Garrison. Beautiful the unveiling by the handsome, 
sturdy boy of the Phillips family blood, John C. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 59 

Phillips, Jr. Every participant was an emulator 
of the "Prophet of Liberty, Champion of the 
Slave." 

Not since the enactment of the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment, Phillips' great work, have so many assembled 
at an occasion for the presentation of the cause of 
freedom for the colored American in Massachusetts. 

The monument, a masterpiece by Daniel Chester 
French, the sculptor, represents the great aboli- 
tionist standing at a reading desk, his right hand 
resting upon the desk, his left outstretched and 
holding a bit of a broken fetter. Upon the marble 
background above the head of the statue are the 
words: "Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty 
knows nothing but victories." On the pedestal in 
front are the words in raised bronze letters : 

WENDELL PHILLIPS 

1811-1884 

Prophet of Liberty 

Champion of the Slave 

On the reverse side of the background is this 
quotation from Phillips: "I love inexpressibly these 
streets of Boston, over whose pavements my mother 
held up tenderly my baby feet, and if God grants me 
time enough I will make them too pure to bear the 
footsteps of a slave." 

Owing to the location, facing Boylston street and 
about 200 feet from Charles street and Park square, 
the great crowd flowed across Boylston street and all 



60 WENDELL PHILLIPS 

around the monument on the PubHc Garden. The 
little stand in front of the monument could accommo- 
date only about 100, including the speakers and the 
principal invited guests. 

The cosmopolitanism of Wendell Phillips was well 
illustrated in the exercises, in the speakers and in 
the character of the crowd. 

There were three venerable Germans who were 
part of the bodyguard of Wendell Phillips at the 
time when he was escorted to and from his house 
in the turbulent abolition days. These men were 
George Gramlich, Henry Foss and John Koch, 
members of the old German Turnverein, and they 
laid a wreath on the monument. 

Dr. George Galvin also laid a wreath on the 
monument because of Wendell Phillips' great inter- 
est in the labor movement. There were present 
many women suffragists because of Wendell Phil- 
lips' great work for that cause. They placed a 
wreath on the monument some days previous. 

Finally there were many of the eminent repre- 
sentatives of the colored race, for whom Phillips did 
his greatest work — the work which the monument 
is intended to symbolize. 

Mr. Thomas P. Taylor, one of Phillips' body- 
guards, had a platform seat. 

Among the out-of-town guests on the platform 
were Congressman William S. Greene of Fall River. 
The color guard was from the Woman's Relief 
Corps of the Robert A. BeU Post, 134, Dr. Alice W. 
McKane, president, with three others. 



MEMORIAL STATUE. 61 

And finally Acting Mayor Coleman presented 
Mr. Jordan, who moved a vote of thanks to Mr. 
Brigham for his services for the statue and unveiling. 
Mr. Trotter seconded it and Acting Mayor Coleman 
asked ratification by three cheers which he led and 
the people gave with a will. 

Then the people crowded up to the statue and 
lingered about till darkness came on. 



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